The World Bank Institute has published online an earlier Christine Sijbesma, Suma Mathew, and K. Balachandra Kurup case study Community-Managed Sanitation in Kerala, India: Tools to Promote Governance and Improve Health. WBI did this in a 12- page analysis dated January 2010 of IRC and SEUF work in Kerala since 1998 in its Programme on Improving Governance in the Water Sector through Social Accountability.
Published on: 21/10/2011
The World Bank Institute has published online an earlier Christine Sijbesma, Suma Mathew, and K. Balachandra Kurup case study Community-Managed Sanitation in Kerala, India: Tools to Promote Governance and Improve Health. WBI did this in a 12- page analysis dated January 2010 of IRC and SEUF work in Kerala since 1998 in its Programme on Improving Governance in the Water Sector through Social Accountability.
The authors conclude that Kerala currently has the highest coverage of individual household latrines in India. The state’s use of social accountability tools and good practices demonstrates that local organizations can effectively manage their own local sanitation programmes with support from outside sanitation experts and technical and social specialists from the SEUs. By transferring responsibility from national agencies to local government and communities, Kerala’s sanitation reforms were driven by community collaboration and oversight, preventing local elites and unscrupulous vendors from benefiting at the expense of the poor. To ensure the sustainability of the new sanitation practices, community members were required to attend lessons on latrine use and on the importance of sanitation and hygiene.
Despite numerous successes, the programme still faces challenges. For example, regulations mandating the inclusion of women in water and sanitation sector decision-making processes have been largely eliminated. Moreover, the government’s definition of poverty has changed to exclude members of the public who work more than 10 days per month. Many women in Kerala work as agricultural labourers for approximately 10 days per month, and as a result, their households are no longer eligible to receive latrine subsidies.
State funding for latrine subsidies has also decreased by 16.4 percent. The state government of Kerala has adjusted aspects of Clean Kerala, resulting in decreased participation by the public. For example, the state eliminated the position of programme coordinator - a position traditionally held by a member of civil society and responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of latrine construction and procurement processes.
Government authority in water and sanitation is also on the rise. Despite budget cuts to Clean Kerala, state-level members of parliament are receiving increasing amounts of discretionary funding (currently Rs.250,000, or approximately US$5,500). Communities were empowered by efforts to increase transparency and accountability of decisions related to latrine subsidies and construction. Unfortunately, simultaneous efforts to reverse decentralization have had the opposite effect.
The success of Kerala’s sanitation programme depended on the deployment of social accountability tools and adherence to a series of good practices. These tools and good practices can be divided into the following categories that are still highly relevant:
The Kerala Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project benefited India at four levels: the village level; the regional level, particularly for vendors and service providers; the local government level; and the national government level.
Summarized in bullet points:
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This case study was written by IRC's Christine Sijbesma and Suma Mathew and K. Balachandra Kurup from SEUF in Kerala.
Source: World Bank Institute, 2010. Community-Managed Sanitation in Kerala, India: Tools to Promote Governance and Improve Health, Social Accountability Notes, WBI, USA.
Accessed 20 October 2011
